Electrical rotating machines, such as motors or generators utilizing disc-type armatures, are well-known in the art. Such machines, utilizing wires conventionally wound in laminated or shingle-lapped fashion on the disc armatures, are frequently unsatisfactory in that the armatures are undesirably bulky and irregular winding arrangements are required. Arrangement of the wires conventionally into a suitable winding pattern usually takes the form of a crossover of wires, thereby resulting in a large air-gap between field members and a consequential reduction of flux in the gap, which lowers the effectiveness of the machine.
U.S. Pat. No. Re. 33,628 issued on Jul. 2, 1991, discloses an electromechanical machine which has a field producing assembly, which serves as a stator and is mounted in a housing so as to define an axial air gap which is circumferentially disposed about an axis of rotation. The field assembly is structured to produce a circumferential distribution of magnetic flux in the air gap having P periodic extremes of flux density about the axis. A disc-shaped electrical assembly, serving as an armature is positioned in the air gap, and mounted so that the armature and field assembly are rotatable relative to each other. The armature has a circular array of C non-overlapping coils on each of its front and back faces, the coils on one face being angularly offset from the coils on the other face and each having the same arcuate extent, smaller than 360 degrees divided by P. The coils are arranged in groups of serially connected coils with each group occupying an unique area of an armature face. Inasmuch as adjacent coils are exposed to opposite extremes of the flux, they must have current flow in opposite directions. This is achieved by winding adjacent coils in opposite directions.
During manufacture of the armature, it is preferable to have each group of series coils wound from a single wire. As a result, the coil winding machine must reverse winding directions between adjacent windings. Machines capable of such winding patterns tend to be more complex and expensive than machines which need not change directions, and they tend to be somewhat slower in overall operation.
In accordance with the present invention, all the coils on the on the armature of a disc-type electromechanical machine are wound in the same direction (rotational sense). The coils on each face of the armature are formed into at least two series connected groups of coils which are disposed on the surface of the member so that each coil of one group is located between two coils from another group, and power is commutated to the groups of coils so that they conduct current in opposite directions.